Philosophies of Social Science Research
Professor Nicholas Gane
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The readings from Back and Puwar this week are
about the discipline of sociology, but their
arguments can be applied to social science more
generally
They offer a response to the crisis of social
science material we looked at two weeks ago
They ask of the future of social science when it
‘can no longer claim exclusive jurisdiction over
empirical techniques of investigation’ + what is
its ‘value in the midst of a society that is
producing more information at a greater
frequency than at any other point in human
history?’ (p.6)
Their response: a ‘manifesto’…
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The world of fast media technologies poses a
set of daunting challenges to social research
But it also presents a number of
unprecedented opportunities:
‘The tools and devices for research craft are
being extended by digital culture in a hyperconnected world, affording new possibilities
to re-imagine observation and the generation
of alternative forms of research data’ (p.7).
Question: the extension of our traditional
audiences + the retention of their attention?
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The tendency to be dazzled by the new
Need to think across longer time-frames and
retain a sense of history
The danger is that we become ‘Lost in the
‘latest’, ‘newest’ and ‘most recent’ ‘plastic
present’, caught up in the nets of a relatively
small time horizon’. They add: ‘In this genre of
digital research ‘people remain stuck in the traps
of now’, and are quashing the development of
sociology and its ability to identify historical
trends’ (p.8).
Research that is sensitive to continuities – not
just historical discontinuities/ruptures/breaks
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Back and Puwar ask us to think about the
more general picture while remaining aware
of the problems this might present
Often we get lost in our micro-specialisms or
the details of our projects
There can be a tendency to do this through
the course of PhD research
Remind yourself of the bigger questions or
fields at stake – especially important if you
are going to publish elements of your
research
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A notion that comes from the appendix to C.
Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination
An invitation to think about our practices –
both methodological and literary
In the first instance, this reading emphases
methodological innovation in the face of
technological change
The aim is to ‘invent devices which adapt, repurpose and take advantage of the analytic
and empirical capacities that are embedded in
online media’ (p.9).
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A question of speed - slowing down instead of
chasing the world perhaps opens new
opportunities of social science research?
One of the joys of academic research is that you
can take risks: you can travel in unexpected
directions
Back and Puwar: ‘Presented with strange
encounters, alternative ways of categorizing and
knowing the world emerge…we as researchers
become exposed to openness and the liveliness
of the events we try to get close to. The idea here
is to generate better questions rather than fixed
answers’ (p.10).
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How to hold public attention? Through mixed
media of research?
Should social science research necessarily be
bound to a textual form?
New forms of aesthetic practice or curation?
New visualisation techniques?
An answer to the question posed by Savage
and Burrows about what to do when the
social sciences become embedded into
popular culture
‘Impact’?
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What is the ‘empirical’? What ‘sense’ of the
social world do we have?
Back and Puwar: ‘Commercial organizations
are continuously re-calibrating their products
and our senses for new markets; market
research consultancy firms specialize in being
attentive to the senses. We have to train
ourselves to be alert to what uses the sensory
has been put already, as well as where else
we can take it’ (p.11).
Research needs to be alert and lively
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Back and Puwar here address the question of the
literary craft of the social sciences
Especially important if such science is to be
publicly engaged
Think about the attention span of your readers?
What type of language: technical or dumbeddown?
‘Using multimedia and new devices we can
produce pieces of work that are “compounds of
word, image, sound and text”’ (p.12).
Social science as a form of ‘art’?
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Some repetition here of point 2 – again the
argument is that a sense of history is important
Social science has been experimental since its
outset – a struggle to forge new methods and
techniques of analysis in response to the
empirical challenges of the time
What can be learnt from the past?
Why get tied into methodological or theoretical
dogmas? These can be constraining (we have
talked about this on the Practice of Social Science
DTC module)
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Again draws on a previous point (number 5)
Main focus here is on institutional time pressures
‘The imperative to publish fast threatens both the
attention that social researchers can apply and
the quality of our writing’ (p.13).
Their position: ‘The long-term intellectual future
of the discipline is best served by participating in
modes of knowledge that are beyond the
instrumentalism of the audit culture and what is
referred to in the United Kingdom as the ‘impact
agenda’ (p.13)
Is this possible for early career researchers?
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Any new ‘live’ social science is likely to carry with
it new ethical and political dilemmas
Back and Puwar: ‘What we choose to be
concerned with, or focus on and listen to,
involves making judgements not only about what
is valuable but also what is important’ (p.14).
Ethics: ‘within an increasingly regulated
university context the preoccupation with “ethical
approval” and “risk assessments” results in
anxiety among researchers producing something
close to a kind of “ethical hypochondria”’ (p.15).
Are they right? What is the alternative?
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Back and Puwar provide a direct response to
Savage and Burrows
They agree that ‘In the 20th century, sociology’s
distinctive position relied on its research
methods (survey, interview and focus group),
which gave it a special capacity to produce
empirical data that formed the basis for new
forms of social understanding’. And that ‘Today
we are less confident about articulating the
sensibilities that make up the researcher’s craft.
Government agencies and the corporate world
have incorporated these empirical methods, from
statistical analysis to ethnography, into the
statecraft of market research’ (p.15).
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But they argue that in the face of these
challenges we shouldn’t be defeatist
‘The researcher’s craft is now to measure and
weigh data and to evaluate the unprecedented
volume of information being produced by
humankind. Amid these changes, it is a timely
moment for conducting a contemporary Homo
Academicus (Bourdieu, 1988), and to debate the
forms of work we are doing, the kinds of
academics we are producing, and the
institutional and life worlds we occupy as well as
make’ (p.15).
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Many of these arguments are addressed in
further detail in the articles which are
collected in this issue of The Sociological
Review
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Browse through these at your leisure
But if these issues interest you take a close
look, in particular, at the accompanying piece
by Les Back (which was also set as a key
reading)
A focus on the question of ‘attentiveness’ and
the thresholds of knowledge
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Back tells a story from a collaborative project
with a group of commercial qualitative
researchers
He recalls: ‘Just as the analytical discussion
seemed to be getting going it was called to a
sudden halt. One corporate ethnographer
announced: “I’ve got enough for a PowerPoint
presentation!” It was very telling. The threshold
of “enough knowledge” in these worlds is passed
when they can predict your next Amazon
purchase, or have enough ideas to furnish a
PowerPoint presentation’ (p.19).
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The joy of academic research (particularly PhD
research) is that it isn’t necessary constrained by
such thresholds
It can produce knowledge that is valuable in itself
and isn’t necessarily dictated by an instrumental
purpose
It isn’t the same thing as a commercial or
government project that is required to have
particular pre-defined outputs
Within limits, it can be a creative and
experimental exercise that can lead to the
production of a different type of knowledge…